Chapter 16: One Cupcake

Maureen sat on a marble bench in the lobby of the Hollister Grand, in her worn cleaner's jacket.

She held a white cardboard box in both hands.

Four guards stood around her at a polite distance.

Nobody had touched her.

A hundred guests had stopped at the front desk and the elevators to watch, and a dozen of them had their phones up.

Ronan and I came through the revolving door fast.

He had cursed at the carpet the whole way in.

"Maureen," I said.

She looked up, and her whole face changed.

"Gill. You came."

"Ma'am," said the hotel manager, a tall man in a black suit, stepping between us.

"This woman has been served notice not to enter the property. The police are on their way."

"She's sitting on a bench," Ronan said.

"She is trespassing."

"She's holding a box."

"Madam has refused to leave for two hours."

"I'm not making trouble," Maureen said to me.

Her voice was hoarse.

"I only want to see her one time. Just to say the one thing."

"What's in the box?"

She opened the lid with a thumb.

Inside was one small cupcake with white icing, slightly crushed, and a single pink candle.

"I never got to bring her one," Maureen said. "Not one, in twenty years. I wasn't allowed to be there."

My throat closed.

I knew that cupcake had cost her something, probably her lunch.

At the top of the grand staircase a door opened.

Camille came out onto the mezzanine in a cream sweater, with one hand on the brass rail.

The lobby went quiet from the bottom up.

She looked down at her mother, and her mother looked up.

"Baby," Maureen said. She stood, holding the box out in front of her like something that might spill. "Happy belated birthday."

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